NEW YORK (AP) Former
Teamsters boss Ron Carey was indicted Thursday on charges that he lied during
an investigation of fund-raising in his 1996 re-election campaign.

A seven-count indictment charged Carey with perjury and
making false statements to an election officer, the chief investigator for a
review board and the board itself.

It alleged Carey, 64, of Queens, made a total of 18 false
statements to the election officer on two occasions alone and a total of 39
false declarations. It said he committed perjury before a grand jury on July
16, 1997 and Oct. 1, 1997.

Prosecutors said the charges stemmed from investigations
into illegal efforts by his campaign to raise money for his 1996 re-election
campaign for the union's presidency.

A message left with a lawyer for Carey in Washington was not
immediately returned.

Carey's 1996 re-election over James P. Hoffa was overturned
after investigators found that his campaign had improperly benefited from
donations the union made to third-party political organizations.

Prosecutors alleged that money was paid out to four
organizations with the understanding that money would then be contributed to
the effort to re-elect Carey. The union is not permitted to use its money to
fund elections for union members.

Prosecutors said the contributions to organizations,
including one for senior citizens, were staggering in their size and
unprecedented, especially since the union was nearly broke.

Carey was disqualified from a new election after it was
found he participated in the diversion of about $885,000 in union funds to his
1996 campaign. Carey has maintained that he was unaware of the scheme.

The indictment, though, alleged that Carey falsely denied
knowledge of Teamsters contributions to the organizations and falsely claimed
he could not remember conversations with Teamsters employees and his campaign
manager about those contributions.

Hoffa, son of Jimmy Hoffa, lost to Carey by less than 4
percentage points in the 1996 election. Hoffa in December 1999 defeated Tom
Leedham in a rerun presidential election.

After the disqualification, Carey took a leave as president
and a federal auditor was named to oversee the finances of the
1.4-million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the nation's
largestprivate-sector union.
Later, Carey was expelled from the union.

William W. Hamilton Jr., the former Teamsters director of
governmental affairs, was sentenced to three years in prison after he was found
guilty by a jury of participating in the scheme.

Three consultants to Carey's campaign have pleaded guilty in
federal court and were awaiting sentencing.

If convicted, Carey faces a maximum penalty of five years in
prison on each of the seven counts in the indictment.